


Schrödinger's Cat

by MistressGalahat



Series: Twelve Days of Stories [5]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Character Death, F/M, Identity Reveal, Sad, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-10
Updated: 2016-12-10
Packaged: 2018-09-06 07:33:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,590
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8740567
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MistressGalahat/pseuds/MistressGalahat
Summary: Paris is overrun with zombies. Ladybug and Chat try to regroup.





	

**Author's Note:**

> On the fifth day of Christmas  
> my true love sent to me:  
> Five Lady Spots

Paris would have been beautiful that night, if it hadn’t been for the zombies.

Running across the rooftops, Ladybug found herself out of breath and brandishing her lucky charm like a weapon. She swung and leapt and glided in the air, hoping that Chat would pick up on the other end as she called him.

The picture that came up was blurry, and she had to fight to keep her feet on the slippery roof tiles. “Chat?” She asked, as the image became even more fussy and changed from pitch black to bright streetlamps.

“My Lady?” Chat’s voice wavered, but there was no doubt whether he was infected or not. Ladybug had yet to come across a zombified citizen in Paris who were able to utter an understandable word.

He was out of breath, and the occasional groan that made it through to her end was the unmistakable noise of a zombie. It made sense if Chat was lunging his staff around trying to avoid zombies while answering her call. If the situation wasn’t as dire, she might have scolded him.

“Chat, if you can - meet me at the Eiffel Tower. There are too many zombies in the streets, and some of them have made it to the roofs by now.” A particularly persistent one had been following her since she had left her home. It wasn’t someone she knew, and for now, she had left her parents clawing at the hatch to her barricaded room. How the zombie had managed to crawl up without anything to claw onto was a mystery for another day.

“The Eiffel Tower?” The connected fizzed and sparked.

“Yes,” she said. “If they can’t all climb, then we’re safer there. We can’t help anyone if we wind up dead.” As much as it pained her, it was the best plan she could come up with. Barricade the doors and hold down the fort while the two of them exchanged ideas.

A loud smack nearly made her fall, but after realising that it was on Chat’s end, her scared mind turned to worrying. “Chat?” She called. The Eiffel Tower was coming into view.

“I’m still here, my Lady.” He huffed. “I have to go, but I’ll meet you at the top of the tower. I promise I’ll be there.” He cut her off without a chance to say goodbye. Ladybug kept on running, her destination clear in front of her. If she stopped, she knew she would only start to worry about Chat - wonder if Alya was okay, if her parents could be cured and if Adrien was even in town at the moment.

“Leave me alone!” Ladybug yelled at the zombie behind her. It was nearly crawling forward, dragging and unsteady on wobbling feet, and yet somehow it carried itself with poise and speed that was unlike anything Marinette thought she knew about zombies.

There was no arguing with these things. They had no recollection beyond guttural groans and a need to eat whatever moved slightly faster than themselves. Taking to the roofs had been both a strategic maneuver as well as a desire to not engage directly with the zombies. If driven to it, Marinette didn’t know if she would be able to do the unthinkable, even if it meant saving herself.

The Eiffel Tower was oddly deserted as she reached the top. No guards had tried to stop her, and the lowest floor coated in blood had made her stomach churn and kick. She hadn’t come across a single citizen of Paris that was uninfected. Barricading herself on the top of the Eiffel Tower appeared the most logical thing to do with every passing moment.

The door two feet to her left groaned and creaked as someone shouldered it from the inside. Her breath misted over with a thin sheen of frost in the moonlight, her uniform sweaty and cold from her hasty run. The view was from the top was stunning.

“My Lady? Can you open the door and let me up?”

Even muffled through a layer of steel, Ladybug sighed in relief at Chat’s carefree voice. “Give me just a second!” She called. Pulling away whatever little she had managed to stack up against the door, Marinette’s shoulder slumped down and eased out some of the tension that had been gradually building up.

Chat’s face - covered in dried blood and what must have been thin scratches from his own claws - had Ladybug straighten her back and her muscles grow tense within seconds. Chat, above all, looked exhausted and half dead.

“What happened, Chat? Are you okay?” Her hand had moved on its own volition, carting her fingers through the silky strands of her partner’s hair. His eyes drooped, a soft breath leaving his lips and irritating a bruise below his cheek in response.

“I’m better now that I know you’re okay, Ladybug,” he whispered, a purr lying underneath his words like a tiger waiting to pounce on its prey. “But I think we would both feel better if we were to barricade the door again.”

Marinette snapped out of her daze with a blush rising to her cheeks, withdrawing her hand from atop Chat’s head as if she had been bitten by the very teeth peeking over his lips. “Right,” she muttered.

They didn’t speak as the two of them shoved whatever they could find in front of the door. On top of the tower, alone and left in silence, they could almost pretend the world wasn’t burning beneath their feet. That Paris would live to see another sunrise and that the red in the streets wasn’t blood, but simply a red carpet wounding itself around the bleeding city like a wounded animal.

Marinette didn’t notice the tears leaking from her mask until Chat pulled her close and wiped them away from her cheek. On any other day she would have protested, but this was a night unlike any other they had ever seen. His hands were warm and his embrace was safety.

“Do you think Hawk Moth is behind this?” Whispered Chat. His breath tickled her hair, and Ladybug shuddered in response but didn’t pull away. She leaned into the hug, nose buried in the smell of Chat and the feelings of happiness that stirred within her at the thought of him being safe and sound.

“Maybe,” she said, eyes glancing over the moon bathed Paris below. The glowing eye in the sky held a strange red hue to match. “Do we know of anyone else who would have the power to do this? To turn the city against itself and its people with the whisper of a moth?” Anger grew from the pits of her belly till it became a sweltering rage that left her trembling and sobbing.

“You know, Hawk Moth might be dead too,” said Chat, tugging her closer. Marinette hated the relief that bloomed in her chest at the words, but she indulged the emotion for just a few seconds. “Hawk Moth hasn’t always been able to control his Akuma - and this time I think it got out of hand.”

“I shouldn’t feel happy knowing he might be dead, but I can’t help it.” She clutched Chat closer to her, for once not wanting to let go of the cat that had so often caused trouble and still managed to save the day.

“I know,” he huffed, his breath warm against her freezing body. Winter wasn’t far off, and the altitude didn’t leave matters in their favour. “But don’t feel guilty, my Lady, I can’t seem to find compassion within myself either. Hawk Moth started all of this, and it was his own ambition that killed him, not us.”

Chat pulled her chin upwards, the difference in their height only made so much clearer by the bold move. “Don’t cry anymore, Ladybug, you’re not alone in this. I’m here, and I’m not leaving.”

Tears welled up again, fresh and raw, but filled with joy and hope beyond anything else. “Thank you,” she whispered into the air. “Thank you, Chat, I needed to hear that.” She stayed in his embrace, content as the sniffles and sob grew smaller and smaller until she was merely resting against him. His heartbeat was strong, and for a second she imagined falling asleep standing on that rooftop. Her body was aching, and while she should be worried about the few spots left in her earring, she couldn’t muster up the strength to care.

Chat’s ring was down to one dot, and he wasn’t tearing himself away from her.

As it was Marinette didn’t see a problem with letting their transformation fade on its own. If Chat was willing to work with who she was underneath the mask and without her Kwami, then she would do the same for him. They were the only two left, and there couldn’t be any more secrets between them.

“Chat, your ring is close…” The words tumbled from her lips and came to a stop. Letting her eyes open so close to Chat, she had a direct look at his shoulder. The cloth was torn, as it had been in numerous places, but this one was a bitemark she had seen on so many others. “Oh no…”

“Ladybug? What’s the matter?”

He didn’t even know. God, how cruel was the world to let her have hope and then rip it from her grasp. To rip it from Chat, who deserved so much more than what he had been given. Marinette could already see the thin black veins sprouting from the teeth marks, growing and growing and growing ever so closer in the direction of his heart.

How ironic. She had always thought his heart belonged to her.

“Chat,” she said again, cradling his cheek as she started weeping again. Something in her voice must have alerted him - maybe the crack of her vocal cords or the despair so clearly written on her face - she didn’t know.

He took her by the wrist, ever so gentle and loving, and kissed her gloved fingers one by one. “They got me, didn’t they?” It was his turn to cry, but not once did the tears stop him from giving a sad little smile.

“Maybe we can wait it out,” she begged as she felt him pull away. His hand by her waist left behind an imprint of warmth that grew colder with every second it was gone. The featherlight touch on her fingers was the only part of them touching.

And even that part of her, he let go. “I might hurt you, Ladybug. And I never want to hurt you again.” His shoulders shook, a silent and mournful silhouette underneath the moon and its disregard of their pained existence.

“We’ll find a way,” she insisted, voice growing louder in her desperation and helplessness. “We always do. Why should this time be any different?” Marinette took a step forward, but Chat matched her and dodged back, flinching as he did so. A scarlet droplet trickled from his hairline down to his chin, a bloody tear that mixed with the salt of his own.

He was too close to the edge, in Ladybug’s opinion. Three more long, winding, painful steps backwards and he might fall. With or without being infected, he wouldn’t be able to survive. His body would be too broken, even if the akuma infected part of him demanded that he keep going.

Ladybug shuffled her feet where she stood, a bite to her lip leaving it as bloody as Chat’s face. “Don’t do anything stupid, Chat. Please, just don’t.” The silent ‘ _ I can’t save you if you do _ ’ was clear in the air. Clear in the way her shoulders were squared and her eyes betrayed the calm she exuded.

He gave her a laugh, full of mirth and happiness and heartbreak that was simply so Chat it made her conviction falter. It ended in a cough when his lungs didn’t keep up with his intake of breath, and when he removed his hand from his mouth, it was dripping black.

“Please,” she whispered, knowing that it would be the last thing he might understand from her. If Chat knew her like he claimed to do, then he would know the soft tone of her voice meant that she cared for him. That she didn’t wish for him to die and leave her alone. That she  _ needed  _ him, and that he was leaving her behind when he had promised he wouldn’t.

“I’m sorry,” said Chat. His voice was booming and loud, or maybe it was the rushing blood in her ears that made it seem so. “But this is the one promise I have to break.” Throwing his staff at her feet was very much like throwing the towel.

“Urgh!” Chat grabbed his head, clawed fingers digging into his scalp and pulling out clumps of blonde hair as the pain overwhelmed him. He gnashed his teeth until his lips were pulled apart and flayed skin was all that was left, eyes squeezed shut as they leaked blood instead of tears.

Marinette’s hands flew to her mouth, a cry ripping itself out of her throat.

His eyes were still the brightest green she had ever seen. Thoughtful and kind even as the lines crawled upwards and up, his pupils blown wide as he gave her one last smile that encompassed all of what Chat had been to her. What he had felt for her.

“Cataclysm!” He cried, skin falling apart like paper snow as he pounded his hand down on the beam upon which he stood. The material groaned beneath him, eroded and corrupted itself until it fell apart and took Chat with it.

“No!” Marinette ran forward, hurling herself as close to the corroded edge as she could get without it collapsing under her.

Chat looked like an angel as he fell, hair whipping around him like a glowing halo and eyes gleaming like dying embers. His smile didn’t falter or change, even as his ring did.

A bright flash seconds before she could no longer make out his features in the dark, the mask fell apart and revealed Adrien Agreste. Bloodied and knowing he was about to die, she could almost believe she had imagined the little wink he gave her.

She sobbed as he disappeared into the black abyss of a moaning Paris far beyond her reach. There was no sound to let her know if he had hit the bottom, and her sobs rang through the air as her heart bled for the person she had come to love both in and out of masks.

The door behind her screeched as it was ripped from its hinges, metal and hopelessness flung side by side onto the rooftop. Marinette turned in time to match the stride of the zombies crawling over each other to get closer.

Dying was inevitable at that point, even she knew it. Alone and left without a way to know if the sun’s touch might cure the growling and snarling beasts she would once have laid down her life to protect.

She tucked Chat’s staff closer to her chest, whipping out the string of her own weapon and taking a deep breath that made her rib cage rattle and cry in protest.

Having known Adrien  _ and _ Chat, that was the part of her life she was going to remember. The best part of her short existence. For him, she would keep on fighting, even if he wasn’t by her side.

“Lucky charm!”

**Author's Note:**

> Second request from my friend, Willow. 'Cause she knows I ain't ever written stuff about zombies, and she's scared to death of them anyway. And would you look at that, it was a straight pairing to boot!


End file.
